Too many passwords

Depending on how active you are online you may have anywhere between 1 to 50 logins (username and password pairs). It's just that every web site you go to requires a separate login. Sometimes you can reuse the details but not always. Your favourite username might be taken, or the password rules are incompatible with each other. Thus it's practically impossible to use the exact same login for every site you run into. This is usually not a problem for sites you use on a daily basis such as emails, but for sites we seldom use the it's always a challenge to recall the username and password. "Which email address did I use for the username?" "When I changed my password last year did I remember to update for this site?...no, and apparently I didn't update for the password change two years ago either." The problem becomes more complicated as some sites change ownership or two sites merge. I once lost my netscape.com email because when AOL bought Netscape it got changed to netscape.net, and with that I was unable to recover the password for the old SETI@home project. In short, things can become quite messy, and this is the reason I do not create accounts on web sites unless I absolutely have to.

As if things are not bad enough, we also have some "hidden" accounts created for us automatically when we subscribe to real services such as phone and utilities. Most of the time we are not even aware of the existence of these accounts until we need to say change our credit card details or enter a competition. But if we didn't create the accounts ourselves, how the hell do we know our username and password? If you are lucky, you may be able to dig up the letter they sent you when you first subscribed and the login details would in that letter. More likely there was no letter or it was lost or they never told you the login details. Thus you can't login and have to call support to get the details. If you can confirm your identity to the support guy he might tell you how to login. If you are calling on behalf of someone else, good luck.

Here's a real life story and basically what motivated me to write this post. My mum's credit card was discontinued because they thought the spending pattern seemed suspicious (in fact nothing of the sort was going on). Rather than reinstating the card, they had to issue a new one to my mum. This means we have to update the credit card details for our phone services. Now, trying to log onto the phone website, I found the password on the phone bill would not work. A few trials later I was redirected to a password recovery page, where it would email me the password. Great, except at the bottom I have to enter the "4-digit service code". What?! What the hell is that? You can imagine how silly this is. If I don't know the password why would I know a 4-digit service code? So in order to retrieve one shared secret (the password), I have to have another shared secret (the service code)? Come to think of it, isn't the service code just another password?

It's not hard to see the problem here. We have too many passwords, so only the frequently used ones are remembered. I don't know how long it'll take phone or utility companies to realise their customers don't need to access their accounts every day. Or every week. Or every month. Or ever (just call support...). If they want the customers to actually be able to login, maybe they should make the logins easier. Maybe the username is the customer number and the password the driver license number or something they actually know. You might think this choice of password is insecure, but if I know your driver license number I can just call up support and ask them to tell me the password. And no, these companies will never understand passwords should not be revealed to anyone including the support staff.

Thunderbird

I have at least 7 email accounts and it's difficult and annoying to keep track of them all. The most obvious thing is I have to login 7 times to check everything, since I do not turn on "remember passwords". Anyway a while back I discovered Thunderbird (TB) can be made to handle many popular webmail accounts such Hotmail and Yahoo Mail, with the help of the Webmail extension. I have been using it for a few weeks and have to say it saved me a lot of time and trouble. I can now check 5 of the email accounts without logging in at all, and TB will regularly check for new mail so I won't miss anything. Granted this method is not perfect -- from time to time I still need to log on to manually delete the read messages as the Webmail extension will only grab them from the server but not remove them. However logging in once every week isn't so bad.

If you have been using any of these popular webmail services you will know they are all becoming more application-like, that is instead of having to refresh the whole page every time only a portion of the screen is updated, and you can use keyboard shortcuts and drag-and-drop to manage messages. They are essentially programs running inside your browser. While I quite enjoy using these new interfaces none of them can compare to an actual program running natively on my computer, in terms of response and functionality. Perhaps one day the internet will become so fast, and our computers so powerful that applications inside a browser is just as snappy as native programs, and none of these would matter. For now, I am sticking with TB.

Just Want To Help...

There was an old scene from E.R. that I still remember: some of the main characters were interviewing medical students wanting to work at the hospital. When asked why they wanted to become a doctor, every one of them invariably answered, "I want to help people." Needless to say, the interviewers were not impressed with their uncreative responses.

Aside from the funny aspect, the scene stuck because to me "I want to help" is the fundamental reason I work hard. It may even be the reason that I still exist, as I have more or less ceased subscribing to consumerism. Instead, I continue to explore ways to help other people. I can't say there is any point to doing that either, but I doubt anyone really knows the true purpose of our being unless one ventures into the realm of religion. Frankly I don't oppose worshipping a God, but I prefer to spend that time helping someone in need, if that's possible. If the price for that is going straight to Hell then so be it.

Even thinking like a typical, sane person there are many things I can do to help the community. In fact, entering the workforce and providing service to the public already helps other people. The advantage of this path is I get paid for my work. However helping just any people is not good enough for me. Often times I have an overwhelming desire to focus helping those in more urgent and basic needs. This means the underprivileged in our society, people in third-world countries, etc.

To this end, there are basically two approaches. One is to leverage my knowledge and skills as (hopefully) a professional to provide the relevant services. The other approach is to provide less skilled work, probably some physical, mundane jobs. Both approaches have their places but I prefer the second one because it shows everyone can help the less fortunate if they choose to.

I still do not know which path I shall go down. The best way to find out is to experience it first hand, so at the end of this year, I am flying to Costa Rica as a volunteer. My job there is undecided -- it doesn't matter because I think I will enjoy it regardless. It will also be interesting to see how far I can cope with the living conditions in a developing country. I hope my accommodation will closely match that of the local inhabitants, as it would be insincere to be helping the poor when most of the resources are used to ensure my comfort.

Shitty Days

Last Thursday and Friday were two of the worst days of my life. Unpleasant things happen all the time but seldom did so many bad events descend on me in just 48 hours. I thought I was going to give a description of the happenings in those two days but I think I'll spare you the extra reading and myself the extra typing because this is not the main theme of this entry. Just take it from me that it is really really bad.

The point is when all of that had passed and I was walking to the train station from uni, I was contemplating how to write this post, when I suddenly realised I had been going through events in the past 48 hours, analysing them and recollecting all the little details, yet none of that triggered any frustration or sad feelings that one would expect to feel on such a shitty day. It was as if the victim was another guy and I was merely an observer. And having realised that I still didn't feel bad so I knew I didn't "forget" to feel sad. In other words I was quite numb to these undesirable events. There were only indifference, apathy and boredom. It is possible that the sadness is still inside me waiting to be released, but so far I am not sensing any. Maybe all that economics training does have an effect on me: what you can't change does not matter any more, so don't base your decisions on them.

One Down, Two More To Go

Blair to leave office on June 27

I hope I'm making my political stance very clear.

The Box Closes

Pandora has finally closed the hole in its check for U.S. users. Previously the "check" consisted of asking for the user's zip code, but now the service actually finds out the geographical location using the user's IP. Just as I suspected, the ban was put in place due to the recent increase of royalties paid by webcasters. For this reason I don't blame Pandora for turning its back on me. Unfortunately for them, I'm not particularly upset by the ban. AOL radio continues to stream XM satellite radio to my speaker, and the Hong Kong version of Yahoo! Music has recently opened up a streaming radio station. In short, the loss of Pandora is practically inconsequential to me because there are still many other services up and running. And of course there is the P2P option, which I will not hesitate returning to if the music industry pisses me off too much by driving every player out of the game.

Preempting A Bad Outcome

Obviously the war on Iraq is not going well. Even Bush and Howard have to admit that. However they are anything but ready to back down. Instead they want to send additional troops to the war-torn country, even though it is not clear whether that will help the situation. It would be unwise to lie to the public, such as telling them "the additional troops will ensure our victory in six months". If such a promise is not delivered in time, the public backlash will be quite unmanageable. So now we often hear the administrations preempting a bad outcome, essentially telling us "don't get your hopes up on this one". I find this strategy flawed. First lowering expectations does not make a bad outcome easier to accept, especially when "bad outcome" means more dead soldiers. The only difference is the level of disappointment, and at this point we are all too numb to be further disappointed. Secondly, telling people a plan is likely to fail begs the question of why implement the plan in the first place? I'll really like to hear the White House's logic on this.

Bad Regulations

I have discovered a class of regulations that does the opposite of what it is supposed to. Basically the lawmakers, with good intentions, creates a rule that cannot be enforced against those who are determined to break it. On the other hand, the rule inconveniences people who break the rule but not with malicious motives. Here is an example: banning photography in underground train stations. It is almost impossible to catch someone if they are trying hard to conceal their actions because every mobile phone is now a camera and provided the photographer is not posing like one, the only way to catch them is to look over everyone phone users' shoulder to confirm they are not breaking the law. On the other hand, there are many benign reasons to shoot away in a station, one of which being teenagers just like taking random pictures and posting them onto MySpace. These people are not doing anything wrong so they do not have to hide their actions, but it is them, not the potential terrorist attack planners, that get caught.

This problem isn't limited to laws -- DRM is a good example. Digital Rights Management is supposed to stop piracy but it never bothers the real pirates. Instead it is customers with legitimate copies that get inconvenienced.

The takeaway message of this post is that for any regulatory scheme to work as intended, you must be able to enforce it against those determined to break them. Failing to do that, the "bad guys" will remain free while the "good guys" will suffer rather than benefit from said regulation.

Cappuccino, No Sugar

Last week I decided to walk a few blocks from the uni to try out Starbuck's coffee. Until then I had always bought my coffee at the uni. It turned out their smallest cup is "tall" which is bigger than a medium and certainly more expensive. "No problem," I thought, "a bigger cup costs more." Because the uni cafes always added the sugar for me, I just took my cappuccino and left. I don't really mind sugarless coffee but the liquid in the Starbuck's cup tasted like hot coffee-flavoured water. It got better after I went through half the cup and it cooled down a bit, but overall it was not that great and the premium I paid for the Starbuck's brand was not really worth it. I was tempted to make a direct comparison to the uni coffee but in the spirit of fairness I had to compare apple to apple so this week I have been buying coffee at the uni without sugar. I will not go to Starbuck's again.

On the other hand, I don't think I'm in a hurry to return to sweetened coffee either. Latte has more milk so even without sugar it's easier to drink but cappuccino can be quite bitter at first. Nonetheless I found myself drawn to the supposedly unpleasant taste. Although my tongue tells me I shouldn't like the stuff I am able to pick up more of the "real" coffee flavour, previously masked by the sweet taste of sugar. The excitement generated by this discovery overpowered the tongue's reluctance for more bitter coffee, and is fuelled on by the thirst to find out even more. So far I have found out the same cup of coffee has very different tastes at various temperatures. The effect was not so pronounced before since it was sweet no matter how cold it got. I can't wait to try out other kinds of coffee and buy them at different shops. From now on, coffee will cease to be just another sweetened drink; it becomes a hobby, a field of study where I can have fun while learning.